Fothergill's Poppy Maanzaad Seeds

Details:

• Botanical Name: Papaver somniferum, a robust, traditional glaucous-foliage annual poppy.
• Bountiful Culinary Harvest: Specially grown for its high yield of premium quality 'maanzaad' (poppy seeds), perfect for topping homemade breads, lemons cakes, pastries, or grounding into rich baking pastes.
• Stunning Floral Display: Produces large, tissue-paper-like single or semi-double blooms, typically in striking shades of soft lilac, mauve, and purple, each accented with dark, dramatic central pools.
• Architectural 90cm Profile: Develops a statuesque, upright growth habit reaching 90cm (3ft) high, featuring unique, ruffled, lettuce-like silvery-blue (glaucous) foliage that provides brilliant structural depth.
• Decorative Seed Pods: As the petals drop, they reveal giant, rounded, crown-topped seed capsules that look highly ornamental standing in autumn borders or dried for rustic indoor floral arrangements.
• Effortless & Fast-Maturing: A highly resilient hardy annual that is exceptionally easy to grow from a direct outdoor scattering, thriving beautifully in poor, well-drained soils and full sun.

Care Instructions:

• Sow seeds directly outdoors where they are to flower from spring (for a late summer harvest) or in early autumn (for an early summer display). Scatter thinly over finely raked soil and press down gently; do not cover deeply as they need light to germinate.
• Thin out the young seedlings to roughly 20–30cm apart to give the large, architectural plants plenty of structural room to develop their heavy flower stems.
• To harvest the edible bread seeds, allow the seed heads to turn completely brown, brittle, and dry on the plant in late summer. Cut the stems carefully, turn the pods upside down over a clean bowl, and shake out the loose seeds. Store in an airtight container.